1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a multi-mirror-system for an illumination system, especially for lithography with wavelengths ≦193 nm comprising an imaging system.
2. Description of the Related Art
EUV-lithography constitutes one of the most promising candidates for next generation lithography. The evolution of semiconductor fabrication demands reduced feature sizes of 50 nm and beyond. This resolution is obtained by the application of a short wavelength of 13.5 nm and moderate numerical apertures of 0.2 to 0.3. The image quality of the lithography system is determined by the projection optics as well as by the performance of the illumination system. Illumination system design is one of the key challenges of EUV lithography. In today's lithographic systems, the illuminator has to deliver invariant illumination across the reticle field. For EUV, several additional requirements have to be addressed.
EUV imaging systems need to be realized as reflective optical systems. For this reason, an unobscured pupil and a highly corrected image field can only be achieved in a small radial range of the image. Hence the field shape is a ring-field with high aspect ratio of typically 2 mm (width)×22-26 mm (arc length) at wafer level. The projection systems operates in scanning mode.
EUV illumination systems will in general be non-centred systems formed by off-axis segments of aspherical mirrors. The reflectivity of multilayer-coated surfaces is approximately 70% for normal incidence and 90% for grazing incidence. In order to maximize throughput, the number of reflections has to be minimized and grazing incidence elements should be used whenever possible.
In order to achieve the requirements of the illumination system with a limited number of optical components, the complexity of the components has to be increased. Consequently, the surfaces will be segmented or aspherical. The shape and size of aspherical mirrors and segmented elements, together with stringent requirements for the surface quality put a major challenge on manufacturing these components.
Several EUV-light sources are currently being discussed. They differ in system aspects, but also in important illuminator-related aspects. System aspects are e.g. output power, repetition rate, footprint. For the illumination system size and divergence of the radiating plasma, radiation characteristics and geometrical vignetting are relevant. The illumination design has to account for these properties.
It is well known from basic physics that the étendue is invariant in optical systems. The étendue delivered by the source has to be smaller than the étendue of the illuminator, otherwise light will be lost. For current sources, however, the étendue is approximately one order of magnitude smaller, therefore either field or pupil of the optical system is not filled completely. In addition, the ring-field with high aspect ratio requires an anamorphotic étendue, which has to be formed by the illuminator.
According to Helmholtz-Lagrange, the product of field A and numerical aperture NA is invariant in classical optical systems. For unobscured and circular pupils the Helmholtz-Lagrange-Invariant HLI or étendue can be written as:étendue=A·π·NA2  (1)
In general, the invariance of the étendue can be interpreted as the optical equivalent to the invariance of the phase space volume in conservative systems. The étendue can be written as a volume integral in four dimensions,étendue=∫F(x,y,Px,Py)dxdydPxdPy  (2)with the function F describing the occupied volume in phase space and P=(n sin θ cos φ,n sin θ sin φ,n cos θ)the vector of optical direction cosines, which corresponds to the pupil coordinates.
For centred systems, the optical direction cosine integration in equation (2) can be written in polar coordinates (θ, φ):
                                                                                          e                  '                                ⁢                tendue                            =                              ∫                                                      F                    ⁡                                          (                                              x                        ,                        y                        ,                        θ                        ,                        φ                                            )                                                        ⁢                                      ⅆ                    A                                    ⁢                                                                                                        ∂                                                  (                                                                                    P                              x                                                        ,                                                          P                              y                                                                                )                                                                                            ∂                                                  (                                                      θ                            ,                            φ                                                    )                                                                                                                          ⁢                                      ⅆ                    θ                                    ⁢                                      ⅆ                    φ                                                                                                                          =                              ∫                                                      F                    ⁡                                          (                                              x                        ,                        y                        ,                        θ                        ,                        φ                                            )                                                        ⁢                                      ⅆ                    A                                    ⁢                                                                          ⁢                  sin                  ⁢                                                                          ⁢                  θ                  ⁢                                                                          ⁢                  cos                  ⁢                                                                          ⁢                  θ                  ⁢                                      ⅆ                    θ                                    ⁢                                      ⅆ                    φ                                                                                                          (        3        )            
The illumination field at the reticle is arc-shaped with dimensions of approx. 8 mm×88 mm. Thus the étendue to be provided by the illumination system has to be almost isotropic in angular domain, but highly anamorphotic in space domain with an aspect ration of 1:10. The different light sources, however, show an almost isotropic behaviour in space as well as in angular domain. In addition, the étendue of all known light sources is too small, although an optimum collection efficiency is assumed. In EUV illumination systems it is therefore essential to transform the étendue of the light source without changing the isotropy in angular domain. Array elements offer the most promising methods to transform the étendue. With optical array elements the field formation with high aspect ratio as well as the filling of the required aperture can be achieved.
The étendue is not increased, but only transformed by the introduction of a segmentation in the entrance pupil. Examples for array elements are the ripple-plate (an array of cylindrical lenses) and the fly's eye-integrator. Both are capable of forming a field with high aspect ratio and introduce a segmentation in the entrance pupil. Partial coherent image simulations show that, the influence of the segmentation of the pupil can be tolerated, as far as a reasonable number of segments is chosen. Illumination systems with fly's-eye integrator are described in DE 199 03 807 A1 and WO 99/57732, the content of said applications is incorporated herein by reference.
Illumination systems with ripple plates are known from Henry N. Chapman, Keith A. Nugent, “A novel Condensor for EUV Lithography Ring-Field Projection Optics”, Proceedings of SPIE 3767, pp. 225-236, 1999.
The content of said article is also fully incorporated herein by reference.
The illumination system has to be combined with the lens system and it has to meet the constraints of the machine layout The mechanical layout of non-centred reflective systems strongly depends on the number of mirrors and the folding angles. Within this setup, the mirrors and special components must be mounted with tight tolerances. Heat load and natural frequencies of the frame structure have to be considered.
In EUV, each reflection will suffer from 30% light loss. The light is absorbed or dissipated leading to a heating of the mirrors. To avoid deformations of the optical elements as well as the mechanical structure, a cooling of mirrors is required. This is especially challenging because the complete optical system has to be under vacuum and hence only conduction can be used for cooling.
Furthermore in an illumination system for lithography it is desirable to introduce means for cutting off the field e.g. by a field stop.
An illumination system for lithography with a field stop is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,538. The content of said document is incorporated herein fully by reference. The system according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,538 comprises a slit plate on which an arcuate image of the light source is formed. By varying the radial length and the length in direction of the circular arc of the opening of the slit it is possible to adjust the radial length and the length in the direction of the circular arc of the arcuate image of the light source on a mask. Therefore the slit plate can also be designated as a field stop. Between the slit plate and the mask there are two mirrors arranged for imaging the arc-shaped field in the plane of the slit plate onto a reticle-mask.
Since the illumination system known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,538 is designed for a light source comprising a ultra high tension mercury lamp emitting light in the visible region the system is totally different to a illumination system for wavelengths ≦193 nm.
For example said system has no means for enhancing the étendue of the light source e.g. by raster elements of a fly's-eye integrator, which is essential for EUV-systems.
The mirrors according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,538 are impinged by the rays travelling through the system under an angle of 45°, which is not possible in EUV-systems, since normal incidence mirrors in EUV-systems are comprising more than 40 pairs of alternating layers. A large number of alternating layers leads to phase effects if the mean angle of incidence becomes more than 30° or is lower than 70°. Using an angle of incidence of 45° in an EUV-system as in the state of the art would lead to a total separation of s- and p-polarisation and one of both polarisation is lost completely according to Brewster law. Furthermore such a mirror would function as a polarizing element.
Another disadvantage of the system according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,538 are the rays impinging the reticle in the object plane telecentric, which is not possible in EUV-systems using a reflection mask.
Furthermore the system known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,538 is a 1:1 system. This means that the field stop in the object plane of the imaging System has the same size as the field in the image plane. Therefore the field stop has always to be moved with the same velocity as the reticle in the image plane. Furthermore said illumination system should be applicable in high throughput systems working with much higher velocities of reticle and mask than conventional systems e.g. systems known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,538.